From Paddleboard to Paradise: Mastering Stand-Up Paddleboarding in Bora Bora
The lagoon around Bora Bora reads as a single sheet of turquoise glass from the deck of a plane, but the illusion breaks when you drop a paddle into it. At roughly waist depth near the shore, the water is clear enough to count individual coral heads from a standing position on a board, and the volcanic silhouette of Mount Otemanu rising 727 metres straight from the centre of the lagoon reframes the whole experience as something closer to geography class than a workout. Stand-up paddleboarding here works because the lagoon is sheltered by a barrier reef that kills